Fact
One: Girls for Rent is also known as I Spit on Your Corpse. Fact Two: The
flick’s leading actress is porn star Georgina Spelvin. Fact Three: Helming this
picture is the one and only Al Adamson, whose extensive filmography overflows
with grindhouse schlock. Given these strikes against the movie, it’s
surprising to report that Girls for Rent
is nearly watchable. The plot makes sense, more or less; there’s quite a bit of
action, especially during the last 30 minutes or so; and Spelvin occasionally
musters a formidable sort of seen-it-all toughness. By the normal standards of
Al Adamson flicks, these are exceptional strengths. Having said all that, Girls for Rent is still a low-budget
quickie starring a skin-flick performer, so viewers know what to expect
here—lots of grimy sex scenes that drag on interminably, with Adamson’s camera
lingering crudely on every grope and gyration. Moreover, it’s not as if
removing, say, 10 minutes of dull smut would have elevated this picture to
respectability. This thing’s trash.
Glossing over the needlessly convoluted and
time-consuming setup, the movie proper begins when hooker Donna (Susan McIver)
doses a client with a knock-out drug. Donna believes her job is to immobilize
the guy and take compromising pictures, but it turns out the drug was lethal.
She’s been set up. Donna flees, so her criminal bosses send badass ladies Erica
(Rosalind Miles) and Sandra (Spelvin) to find and kill Donna. In typical
Adamson fashion, what should have been a simple chase movie morphs into
something shapeless, thanks to semi-comical interludes with creepy supporting
characters and the aforementioned overlong screwing scenes. Eventually, Girls for Rent gets down to business
with chases and fights, to say nothing of a truly grim final sequence. In sum, next time
you’re craving mindless sleaze with a dash of nihilism, here’s the thoroughly
disreputable movie for you.
Girls for Rent: FUNKY
I must give Georgina Spelvin this much credit: While a lot of porn performers adopt names that strive wheezily and unsuccessfully for humor, her choice is genuinely witty. ("George Spelvin" was a traditional actor's alias, used when he needed to hide his involvement in some project--the classic example was an actor who appeared in the first act of one play, then ran across the street to appear in the second act of another; later, it was used by union members in non-union productions.)
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